Tanja Schjødt Jørgensen

Tanja Schjødt Jørgensen received her master in Human Physiology in Sport and Exercise in 2007 from the University of Copenhagen, conducting her master thesis on the effects of training in knee osteoarthritis patients. In 2009 Dr Schjødt Jørgensen was enrolled as a Ph.D. student at the Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI) at Aalborg University, Denmark, in collaboration with the Parker Institute, Copenhagen, Copenhagen University Hospital, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, Denmark.
The title of the PhD is: “Contributions to the understanding of osteoarthritis pain”. The overarching aim of the thesis was to provide more in-depth knowledge about pain mechanisms in knee osteoarthritis (OA), to optimally treat this common disease. Pain and disability are prominent clinical features of knee OA. Some of the mechanisms underlying the pain are unknown. Especially, knowledge of how joint pain affects the pain systems will provide important new insight and help to explain the basic pain mechanisms in humans, and contribute to development of more rational therapies of the pain mechanisms, when targeting pain relief in individuals with knee OA. Tanja defended her Ph.D. in january 2015.

Since 2013 Tanja´s research area has been, and still are, within the field of clinical epidemiology, focusing on treatment strategies in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA), psoriasis (PsO), and spondyloartrit (SpA) evaluating the optimal medical treatment, based on efficacy, drug survival, side effects, quality of life and costs.
In addition, her research also focuses on patient perspectives in relation to disease- and treatment-related concerns including issues on treatment adherence. Considering the patients’ perspectives is necessary to promote patient empowerment and adherence to treatment, and thereby optimizing disease management. Patient empowerment has been explored extensively for more than four decades, yet it remains a major challenge. Successful patient empowerment is crucial when aiming to ensure optimal disease management, to avoid functional disability, and for maintaining occupational availability, thereby increasing the value of healthcare for patients. Specifically, it is essential to identify issues of importance to patients to help guide selection of value based treatment targets and outcomes. Not only patients are crucial when creating value - all stakeholders involved with patient care and healthcare in total are needed to take into account, in order to identify barriers and facilitators for fulfilling true value creation.

Dr Schjødt Jørgensen has published several articles in scientific journals with peer review.